George The Poet, aka 24-year-old George Mpanga, cuts an unusual figure for even a modern day wordsmith.
Born and raised in a tough North-West London estate, and latterly a student at Kings College Cambridge, Mpanga is so much more than he seems.
Having already performed some impressive support slots for the likes of Nas and Common, tonight The Berkeley Suite plays host to the first night of Mpanga’s latest UK headline tour.
Barely two steps inside the venue it’s clear that tonight will be different.
Instead of a merch stand crammed with marked-up tees, tonight Mpanga’s audience can purchase a copy of his new book of poetry, Search Party.
As the venue slowly begins to fill the first of Mpanga’s two support acts take to the stage.
Barney Artist, a 23-year-old friend of Mpanga, warms the audience up with an ease and charm that belie his age.
His between-song banter is engaging and entertaining and instills a confidence in his chilled out beats, one of which includes a slick reworking of a Dizzee Rascal tune.
In spite of a relatively short set Barney is by no means forgettable, and definitely proves himself to be deserving of the prestigious support slot.
Although not mentioned on the promotion materials for the tour, Barney is then followed by a second support Shelz The Dancer.
Like Barney before him, Shelz introduces himself with charm, and then proceeds to deftly manoeuvre his way through an energetic hip-hop flavoured contemporary dance set.
He interacts directly and cheekily with audience members while moving in a way as much influenced by the lyrics as the beats of the tracks he dances to.
After another short but intriguing and skilled set, Shelz sets up a mic and introduces the man himself.
Starting with an uncanny London growl of “Glarrrssssgohh”, Mpanga delivers his first song from a partially hidden position stage right.
The start of his set is then seemingly interrupted by world’s most annoying ringtone: Marimba.
As everyone scans the room, politely enraged, for the perpetrator of the crime, Mpanga pulls his iPhone out of his pocket and answers it.
This ungodly sound wasn’t coming from someone who doesn’t know the location of their silent switch, it was a slick, very well crafted segue into Mpanga’s second song of the evening, ‘Grinding’.
In fact, by the time his well-polished three-piece band chip in, I was beginning to seriously worry that I was enjoying Marimba.
As Mpanga’s skilled and entertaining set advances from tongue-in-cheek showmanship to passionate rhetoric about cultural and social issues, everybody in The Berkeley Suite is completely captivated.
So captivated, in fact, no-one so much as scratches their heads when Mpanga pulls two audience members in front of the lights to question them on their knowledge about methods of contraception.
Throughout the show, Mpanga is confident and believable, his lyricism and performative efforts blend smoothly; nodding to his classic hip-hop influences but also indicating a genuine desire to effectively communicate his manifesto of social change.
Ultimately Mpanga’s performance works to create something bigger than genre.
What’s clear tonight is that it’s unimportant whether or not any of the mesmerised bodies crowding out The Berkeley Suite have either grown up on a North-West London estate, or walked the revered halls of Cambridge University, Mpanga is still able to engage everyone with his rhetoric because he is a true master of his medium.
He oscillates skillfully between spoken word and eloquent rap, finding a smooth and most importantly accessible middle ground that is neither one nor the other; greater than the sum of its parts and unconditionally engaging.
Winding up this truly memorable evening with a flawless rendition of his latest single ‘Cat D’, Mpanga demonstrates, once and for all, that he doesn’t need generic labels, or “swag” to reach his audience; he has something far more powerful, he has integrity.
Words/Photos: Ellie Hopkins
